Many software applications and services are provisioned within hosting environments that support multiple tenancies. The hosting environments include infrastructure and management components that allow parties to establish a tenancy with ease. The tenants can install and run applications from within the hosting environment. Client components communicatively coupled with the hosting environment engage with the hosted applications in order to provide application services to end users having hosted identities.
For example, an enterprise may develop a contacts management application for installation within a hosting environment with which the enterprise has established a tenancy. Users associated with the enterprise, by way of a web browsing application or other suitable interface, engage with the contacts management application through the hosting application. The contacts application is served to the end users from the application servers within the hosting application. In addition, associated data and other information are sometimes stored within the hosting environment.
Not all applications or data have been migrated to the provisioning model described above. Rather, many applications are installed on application servers residing within enterprise environments that are generally access restricted. In addition, the associated data and other information, with which the applications may interact, may reside within the enterprise environment and may be accessed only via the enterprise environment. Users typically gain access to these applications and associated data using enterprise identities.